A Dreamer's Tales (1910) is a short story collection by Lord Dunsany.
Published at the height of his career, A Dreamer's Tales would
influence such writers as J. R. R. Tolkein, Ursula K. Le Guin, and H. P.
Lovecraft. Recognized as a pioneering author of fantasy and science
fiction, Dunsany is a man whose work, in the words of Lovecraft, remains
"unexcelled in the sorcery of crystalline singing prose, and supreme in
the creation of a gorgeous and languorous world of incandescently exotic
vision." "Like a great wall is the mountain to the west. It comes up out
of the distance and goes down into the distance again, and it is named
Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean." A Dreamer's Tales, Dunsany's fourth
collection of stories, contains some of his finest tales of fantasy and
adventure. The distant mountain of Poltarnees has long been a place of
wonder for mankind. The stories of old tell of many a traveler who set
out to see what lay beyond its insurmountable peak. In these same
stories, no one has ever returned. Promised the hand of the Princess of
Arizim, one man hopes that love will give him the power not only to
reach the mountaintop, but to return alive. In "Idle Days on the Yann,"
a story praised by Yeats and Lovecraft alike, a man sails down the River
Yann in order to reach its fabled gate. Along the way, he observes
cities of unspeakable strangeness and beauty. Dunsany's tales of high
fantasy continue to delight over a century after they first appeared in
print. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset
manuscript, this edition of Lord Dunsany's A Dreamer's Tales is a
classic of Irish fantasy fiction reimagined for modern readers.
